Mercato merchants saw jump in online sales during 2018 holiday season
and year-over-year

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/GroceryDelivery?src=hash” target=”_blank”gt;#GroceryDeliverylt;/agt;–Recent data from Mercato,
the online ordering and delivery marketplace for independent grocers,
shows that the platform is helping food retailers significantly increase
online sales, with some more than tripling year-over-year.

Mercato analyzed year-over-year and fourth quarter 2018 sales for
retailers on the Mercato.com platform and found there were sharp
increases. Increases ranged from 45 percent to 400 percent, with
additional increases during year-end holidays, despite growing
competition from national chains and large online grocery delivery
providers.

Examples include natural grocer LifeThyme
Natural Market, with a 380 percent year-over-year increase and 320
percent growth in Q418 over Q417. The
Lobster Place online sales were up 275 percent Q418 over Q417, and
British-themed grocery store Myers
of Keswick in Manhattan saw growth of 130 percent in Q418 over Q417.

Jason Bander, owner of LifeThyme Natural Food Market in New York City,
says that Mercato has broadened his store’s reach in the community and
contributed to his overall sales increases last year.

“Mercato is helping us to compete with bigger chains opening stores in
our community by increasing our reach to shoppers who prefer carefully
curated local products and produce and who otherwise would not be able
to come into the store,” says Bander. “It would have been impossible for
us to achieve this level of online presence and the sales increases we
are seeing without Mercato.”

Higher spending per order is also a driving growth of online grocery
shopping. According to a 2018
Brick Meets Click study, online shoppers have increased their weekly
online spending from 28 percent to 46 percent of their total grocery
spend, with an average order size increase from $62 in 2017 to $69 in
2018. Mercato tops that figure with a weekly average ranging from about
$74 to $85 per order.

According to GlobalData,
online grocery shoppers are buying mostly staple pantry products (27.5%)
and specialist ingredients (20.9%), or ingredients that can be difficult
to get in big chain stores. Mercato sees a similar trend on its platform.

“Mercato complements the in-store experience for shoppers – we ensure
the stores maintain their brand, oversee their own order fulfillment and
leverage our vast delivery network for everything from staples to
special ingredients,” says Mercato
Co-founder and CEO Bobby Brannigan. “Merchants should continue to
see increases of online sales as shoppers learn how easy it is to get
home delivery of their groceries within about an hour with Mercato.”

About Mercato

Mercato
offers same-day delivery of high-quality groceries and specialty foods
from more than 650 independently owned stores in dozens of neighborhoods
across the country in New York (Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens);
Chicago; San Francisco; Alameda, CA; Washington, D.C.; Boston,
Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Bobby Brannigan, an entrepreneur who grew
up working in his father’s grocery store in Brooklyn, NY, created
Mercato to bring online shopping and delivery to independent grocers and
their valued customers. Visit Mercato.com.
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